Why aren’t we curing more degenerative diseases with stem cell research?
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The ethics of harvesting the cells has been a pretty big issue. Someone started saying they come from aborted babies and that dude went with it. Stem cells could literally be harvested from the placenta and umbilical, some not so good cells from adults too. Here’s another thing: healthy people is not good for business in the pharmaceutical world. If you use something that’s too effective you won’t need to buy more of the less effective stuff.
[We are,](https://www.eurostemcell.org/eye-and-stem-cells-path-treating-blindness) but medical development takes a loooooooooong time.
Some of the treatments just now being approved and hitting market, in 2022, began human trials in the mid 2010’s, which means that base research probably started a few years before that.
I can answer for PD but other neurodegenerative diseases are similar.
Unfortunately, for Parkinson’s disease, stem cell treatments have not been very successful so far. Part of the reason is that the abnormal protein (alpha-synuclein) which causes the degeneration of neurons continues to spread, even in the grafted stem cells. In other words, we are not addressing the underlying reason for the degeneration.
Also, stem cells are meant to replace neurons in areas of the brain responsible for movement. We already have fairly good treatments for those symptoms (including levodopa). Parkinson’s gets more challenging to treat when it starts to affect other parts of the brain and causes “non-motor symptoms”. Stem cells would not help with those symptoms.
There are other adverse effects of stem cells like dyskinesia and the theoretical risk of cancer, etc.
It’s still an area of active research so there is still hope. It may be an adjunct treatment to disease-modifying treatments in the future.
TL;DR: stem cells replace neurons but don’t fix the underlying problem that causes the death of neurons
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK536728/#:~:text=As%20has%20been%20discussed%2C%20the,particularly%20disabling%20in%20some%20patients](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK536728/#:~:text=As%20has%20been%20discussed%2C%20the,particularly%20disabling%20in%20some%20patients).
[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18391962/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18391962/)
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Treatments are more profitable than cures and there are a lot of companies earning a lot of money with people paying for life-long treatment instead of a one-time cure.
Stem cell research is still a touchy ethical discussion. Regardless of the benefits and what one might believe, there is a lot of nuance to the discussion that can’t be simply reduced by common Reddit arguments for either side.
Further, in the United States at least, medical treatments have to undergo STRICT trials and testing, the most common process comes in 4 stages. Often times, it will take up to a decade or so before a treatment even hits the market. While it’s easy to laugh at the US and our medical system, we take what we put out very seriously.
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